Abstract

Open access (OA) has been shaping and benefitting the scientific community for years now, but this new wave of disseminating research freely has not quite taken hold in the field of humanities. Though humanities publishers could also benefit from an OA model, many have been resistant, citing possible issues with plagiarism or appropriation of an author’s work for less than ideal uses. There are also challenges with the cost of publishing OA content, which for humanities could be much higher than in the scientific community due to the length of works produced. Some institutions have taken to charging authors to publish their content in an OA model, while others have opted for a membership structure or joining a consortium of other institutions, such as Knowledge Unlatched or the Open Library of Humanities. While many great strides have been taken to bring OA to humanities, there is still work to do to make the study of humanity accessible to all.